


As Canon Sees It

by Tarimanveri (Monksandbones)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: End of an era, Episode: s08e17 Reckoning (2), Episode: s08e18 Threads, Episode: s09e01 Avalon (1), Friendship, Gen, POV Female Character, Sam Carter & Teal'c Friendship, The Most Technologically Advanced Asgard Vessel Ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 16:36:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1354243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monksandbones/pseuds/Tarimanveri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t hard to imagine that within a few months, almost no one here would think of her at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Canon Sees It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ctorres](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ctorres/gifts).



> Written for the summer 2006 Sam Carter Gen Ficathon, for ctorres' request: Sam/Teal’c friendship, the Asgard, a photo
> 
> Originally posted [here](http://samcarterfic.livejournal.com/11993.html), subsequently archived [here](http://tarimanveri-fic.livejournal.com/5385.html)

The pile of boxes she’d stacked next to her door to be moved to her new office and lab was depressingly small, Sam thought, looking at it from behind her laptop on the bare counter in the middle of the room. Two boxes of carefully-arranged computer disks, two computer towers, a few boxes of books and paper files, and some office supplies. How many times had they helped Daniel move out of his office? His boxes were endless. He was packing them all again now, had been for days. Hers came down to an afternoon of packing and a pile of eleven, plus the shoebox containing the few photographs and personal items she’d accumulated over time in her lab, taped onto cabinet doors and tucked into out-of-the-way corners. Not much to reflect the eight-odd years she’d spent based out of this facility. Not much at all to reflect the fact that they had been, for the most part, the most challenging and fulfilling ones she’d ever experienced.

She poked halfheartedly at her keyboard. She wasn’t actually due to report for duty at Area 51 for another week, but at least here on base she could pretend to lose herself in her work. And pretend that she still belonged here while she still officially did.

However little of the SGC she would be taking with her, she would be leaving even less of herself behind. It wasn’t hard to imagine that within a few months, almost no one here would think of her at all. She’d shed how much of her blood on already-forgetting planets? She’d spent how many months and years off world, living out her dreams of space? And to show for it? Eleven boxes, and the team she’d long since come to think of as her family, drifting apart before her eyes.

She absently typed a few more commands into her computer, considering her options. She could go home, but the barren welcome of her already-packed-up house confronted her even more than her empty office with the downside of her efficiency in preparing for her transfer. She could go to the commissary and find something sugary or chocolaty or even blue and comforting that way, but feeling like a ghost in company was even worse than feeling like a ghost alone. She could go and find Daniel, but she didn’t want to face his enthusiastic preoccupation with his own departure. She could…

She was interrupted by a knock at her door. She hadn’t even known Teal’c was on base, but he had an unerring ability to sense when she was moping and materialize in her lab or her quarters or sometimes even at her front door.

“Teal’c, come in,” she said. She wondered if once she left, she would ever be close enough to anyone again that she would be able to recognize them by their knock at her door.

“Colonel Carter.” Teal’c, resplendent in his Jaffa robes, stepped into the room and inclined his head toward her, his face alight, as it had been since the Jaffa victory on Dakara, with satisfaction and vindication. Her heart sank.

“Teal’c,” she said again. Maybe he hadn’t sensed anything. Maybe she was the only one who hadn’t found a way to move on. She turned her attention back to her computer screen, away from his glow of triumph. She felt his gaze on her and her neck prickled uncomfortably.

“Colonel Carter,” Teal’c repeated. “You are preoccupied. Should I return at another time?”

Sam didn’t look up. “It’s fine, Teal’c,” she mumbled. “What do you want?”

“I have come on behalf of the Jaffa council,” said Teal’c. Sam tried and failed to stifle a tiny sigh. “They wish…” he continued and faltered. A note of concern crept into his voice. “What is troubling you, Colonel Carter?”

“Nothing,” said Sam, calling up her model of the base systems and watching the energy pulse through her quiescent mock-‘Gate.

“Look at me, Colonel Carter,” said Teal’c. “Are you unhappy with your decision to take the position at Area 51?”

Sam looked up. The triumph was still there in Teal’c’s face, and she doubted that anything she could do would extinguish it, but now it was overlaid with care. She sighed again. Teal’c was still Teal’c, and the problem was her own insecurity.

“No,” she said, dropping her hands from her keyboard to her lap. “I think the change will be good. But it’s harder than I thought it would be, letting go.”

“Until now, we have been in the forefront of your world’s exploration of the galaxy,” said Teal’c coming across the room to stand next to her. “You are reluctant to entrust that task to others.”

“Yes,” said Sam, imagining never going through the Stargate again and finding it an even less appealing prospect than she’d counted on it being when she’d chosen to give up SG-1. Not that going through the ‘Gate would be the same without Daniel and Teal’c and General O’Neill to welcome them all back home every time they averted an intergalactic crisis. That was the worst part. Jack in Washington. Daniel in Atlantis. Teal’c on Dakara. And her at Area 51, no longer one of them.

She slumped down on her lab stool and turned back to her computer to steel herself. In another week, she wouldn’t even have the ‘Gate – and when had she started thinking of the ‘Gate as an old friend, anyway?

Teal’c laid his strong arm across Sam’s shoulders and pulled her up into a hug. “Samantha Carter,” he said warmly, speaking into her hair as he embraced her, “your friends will always…”

And suddenly, with the unmistakable seamless speed of Asgard beaming technology, they were plunged into deep, echoing darkness.

“Teal’c,” Sam hissed, springing to full attention. “Where are we?”

“I am unsure, Colonel Carter,” Teal’c said. “I do not believe, however, that we have been beamed aboard an Asgard vessel as circumstances would seem to suggest.”

“But the jamming technology on base…” Sam reached down instinctively to draw her sidearm and passed a moment’s panicked fumbling for it before she realized it wasn’t there.

“Colonel Carter, Teal’c.” There was a patter of soft footsteps behind them, and in front of them, light began to rise on a smooth expanse of wall and high ceiling. They both whirled around at the greeting of the familiar, otherworldly voice.

“Thor,” said Sam. Relief made her giddy. “You’ve got your body back. You look great! Congratulations!”

“Yet you indicated that you would pay a visit to Stargate Command when you were once again incarnate,” said Teal’c, frowning. “You have not done so.”

“There has been, as you would say, a slight change of plans,” said Thor.

“What’s the problem?” asked Sam, mentally running through every possible reason she could think up as to why the Asgard would require her presence.

“Fortunately, Colonel Carter, there is not a problem at this time,” said Thor, earnestly. “The Asgard High Council simply felt it would be appropriate to bring you here to witness the completion of the most technologically advanced vessel we have yet constructed.”

He turned to gesture at a huge docking bay opposite them. There against the dimness of the hangar stood the ship, lit up in the bay like the biggest birthday cake ever. So graceful, so symmetrical, so… perfect. Sam had taken one involuntary step toward it and had lifted her foot for another before she even realized it. “Wow, Thor!” she said, looking up at its sleek curves and delicate keel. “It’s beautiful!”

“Now that we no longer face the threat of the replicators, we have been able to considerably improve the power and efficiency of our hyperdrive engines, as well as incorporating improved shielding technology and fail-safe protocols,” said Thor. “The outside perspective you have provided us in the course of our association has been invaluable in the design of this vessel, Colonel Carter.”

“Well, thanks, Thor. I’m really flattered,” said Sam, making the effort to tear her eyes away from the ship and acknowledge Thor, although she was less interested for the moment in the specifications of the hyperdrive than she was in the supremely streamlined hull of the ship and the implications it might have for increasing the efficiency of subspace travel.

“There is more,” said Thor. “We have named the vessel in your honor. It is called the Samantha Carter.”

“What?” Sam gasped, floored for the moment.

“You have made great sacrifices in the war against the replicators,” Thor continued. “With your assistance, the Asgard have escaped certain annihilation several times. We owe you a great debt of gratitude.”

The tears welled up in Sam’s eyes too fast for her to fight them. She had made sacrifices in the war against the replicators. She had asked for trust and betrayed it. She’d lost her father. She’d nearly lost Daniel. She’d nearly lost herself. She’d fought on battlefields that most humans in the galaxy, let alone on earth, would never know about. She had never asked for or expected any acknowledgment of her work, and now here it was.

“Is this not pleasing to you, Colonel Carter?” asked Teal’c.

Thor bowed his head in concern. “Have we offended you in any way, Colonel Carter?

“No, no, Thor! Not at all,” said Sam, wiping her eyes on her sleeve and kneeling down to place her hands on the little alien’s shoulders. “I’m really honored. More than I can say.”

Thor blinked. “Then you are welcome, Colonel Carter. While you are not an advanced specimen of your race like General O’Neill, I have come to have a very deep respect for you and your abilities, as well as your… stupidity, sometimes.”

“Thanks, Thor,” said Sam, with a watery smile.

“I have a suggestion, Colonel Carter,” said Teal’c. “I did not have the chance to discuss the reason for my visit to the SGC with you before Thor beamed us here, but I believe the situation has resolved itself to your benefit.”

“Teal’c?” said Sam, confused.

“The Jaffa high council wishes to harness the power of Tau’ri digital recording technology to preserve the memories of our victorious rebellion. I was sent to ask for your assistance in integrating our two technologies,” said Teal’c. “I have been demonstrating the capacity of your technology to the council with this.” From some hidden pouch or pocket in his robes, he pulled out a tiny, shiny, obviously top-of-the-line digital camera.

“A camera?” Sam asked, dubiously.

“Indeed,” said Teal’c. “Most fortuitously, we have been brought here with the ability to, as you say, ‘capture the moment.’”

“Capture the moment,” repeated Sam. “You want to take a picture?”

“I would like to photograph you with your ship, Colonel Carter,” said Teal’c adjusting the buttons on the camera. “Would I be wrong in thinking that at a later date you might like a record of this moment?”

Sam thought back to her eleven boxes and the eight years they represented. So little in life was permanent, Asgard vessels included. Maybe now that they had defeated the replicators, advanced Asgard technology would have a better chance at standing up to the rigors of the universe, but even if it did, yes, she thought she wanted a record.

“Snap away,” she said to Teal’c who was standing by with the camera ready. “And make sure you get in as much of the ship as you can,” she added, turning around to admire again it while Teal’c positioned himself.

Teal’c nodded. “Say ‘cheese,’ Colonel Carter.”

~~~

Daniel and Teal’c both came to see Sam off at the airport for her flight to Nevada. General O’Neill sent a message wishing her well, and just as she was about to disappear through security, Teal’c slipped her a small, wrapped package. Seated on the plane that would take her to whatever lay ahead, she unwrapped the gift and choked back a hoot of laughter before she had the presence of mind to turn it facedown in her lap and transfer it to her purse. Enshrined in a plastic frame featuring the heads of wide-eyed grey aliens was the picture Teal’c had taken in the Asgard hangar: Sam standing, eyes still red but grinning from ear to ear, in front of the Samantha Carter.

A little girl sitting across from Sam eyed Sam’s uniform with admiration. Sam smiled back, her heart suddenly light. All at once she felt like a six-year-old herself, filled with an insane urge to run down the aisle of the plane, waving her picture and saying “look, everyone! It’s my ship!” The eight years she’d spent on the front lines as the humans of Earth took their first steps out into a universe that was bigger than anyone on this flight could ever imagine wouldn’t be forgotten: not by anyone who mattered, not by the people with whom she’d shared them. And somewhere out there, at least until someone blew it up, was the Samantha Carter, the most technologically advanced Asgard vessel ever.


End file.
